


To Give the Help Needed

by Danmairen



Series: in us we trust [3]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Bad Mornings, Fluff, M/M, Swearing, cause minghao is a sweetheart with a foul mouth, junhui suffers again, shameless selfprojecting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:35:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21669841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Danmairen/pseuds/Danmairen
Summary: When loved ones are hurt, we feel the need to help. We want to save them, to share their burden, or even take it onto your own sholders, just to let them go free of any weight at all. But there is the help you want to give, and there is the help they need you to give, and sometimes, it is just not your fight. It is theirs. And that truly sucks.Minghao has to hold himself back from interfering with Junhui's panicking. It would be so, so easy for him to solve it all, just remove the problem altogether. But he can't do that. He knows better than that.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu/Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Series: in us we trust [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562431
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	To Give the Help Needed

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to challenge myself a bit this time, or just try out something new. Minghao is much more straighforward than Mingyu or Junhui in this, so I tried to let the text reflect the difference as well. Once again, this is just me projecting my own experiences onto Junhui, but I hope you guys might like it as well. Since I have too many unfinished stories about these four amazing pieces of asian men, I've tried to put the into a series instead, so if you like this, maybe check them out? Anyway, thank you for clicking and I hope you have a great day!

Minghao had very few experiences with anxiety himself, mostly related to exams and the stress of deadlines far too close to comfort. But through Junhui and Wonwoo, he had learned to despise it. He could never hate it more than they did themselves, but he would say he wasn’t far behind them. 

Minghao kept his eyes on the tiny radio display in the car, trying to avoid looking at the very still body beside him, shaking with each breath. He knew not to look, not to pressure the elder to say or do anything. The ball was always on the elder’s court, and Minghao wasn’t even a player in the game. This was between Junhui and his own mind.

This was yet another case of the Car-Conflict. Weird name, but Minghao had never been the most creative with naming stuff. These things began in the morning, where the elder would wander around his apartment, trying to get ready for the day, but not actually wanting to be ready. Then something would go wrong, from being too late to get his bus or not having prepared a lunchbox, even though he could just take the pasta and fried cauliflower from the fridge. It was the lack of ready-ness. Third step consisted of Junhui debating with himself whether to go or not, listing pros and cons. This step also introduced the anxiety to the mix, resulting in shaking hands and gasping breaths. At this point Minghao had to begin his own little fight and keep himself from forcing the elder to _just stay home_ , damnit. Every single case all ended the same, so why go through all the contemplating?

But even though he didn’t want to admit it, Minghao knew why. He knew and he didn’t like it, but he had to accept it. It was neither his fight or game. He was a spectator, a supporter or a manager at best, but it was not his fight. He knew Junhui had this idea, this need, to show himself and everyone around him that he was trying. That he wasn’t just lazing around, doing nothing and blaming anxiety or other things for his problems. Stupid, stupid rational reason. But Minghao didn’t voice his thoughts, not now at least. The elder knew how he felt about his reasons, and now was not the time to remind him. 

The fourth step was the one where Minghao, or whoever of their friends, got involved. Junhui would reach out, ask for their opinion, their help. “I should go, r-right? I need to get away from my head, all the noise. It’s too much. I need to feel useful.” And then. “I don’t wanna go. I really don’t wanna go. But I should, it isn’t that hard, just one lesson. Just one, one. I can do that. I can go to one lesson”. Minghao would keep his mouth shut.

They would go to the car, get inside and Minghao would avoid looking at the elder’s face. Because he knew what he would see, and if he did, he would probably either drag the older inside or scream at him, neither very attractive options. So he would stare at the steering wheel, or the display, or Mingyu’s stupid blue Bulbasaur-plush toy in the rear window, trying not to do anything.

Soft kicks hit the car door. The breathes slowed down and sped up again. Fingers fidgeting, searching for something. Minghao held out a hand, now looking at the frost covered sidemirror. A slim hand fit into his own, gripping it tightly. Something tightened in Minghao’s chest, just as tight, forcing his breath out. Goddamnit, he hated this.

“Do you want me to turn the car on?”

Minghao finally allowed himself to look at the elder, trying to read something of his face. Ignoring the tear tracks and snot, he found a tightly wound up grimace, eyes spilling and lips shaking. A shake of the head. Okay.

“Do you want to go inside?”

There was no nod or agreement of any kind, only frozen eyes. Minghao knew that the elder’s brain was like an ants’ nest in the rain, calm and quiet from outside but frantic and messy inside. Pulling the keys from the ignition, he held them out to Junhui, keeping his face neutral of any emotion. This was not his fight. He just had to give support and let the fighters to find the victor. It was not his choice, it wasn’t.

Junhui’s eyes leaped to the keys and his hand reached out, to stop just before reaching the keys. The hand hovered over the keys for a moment, a car passing by. Enough time for the elder’s breath to speed up and slow down again. To let Minghao wonder if he forgot to blow out the candles before they left the apartment. To trying to recall if Mingyu had any projects coming up. A minute.

As if the energy was suddenly zapped from his body, the hand fell onto the keys, gripping them. Minghao didn’t remove his hand until Junhui had moved his own. Gripping the keys hard, the elder opened the door and set his foot on it as he always did, to give his push a bit more flourish. He never did push though. The door let cold air from outside in, but neither of the two moved out of the car. 

This was the very worst part of these incidents. All the waiting and thinking and shitting contemplating. They knew how this would end, and by god did Minghao want to get to the endgame. Back inside Junhui’s apartment with a cup of tea and some Youtube-video playing on a laptop on their laps. With Yue in her chair and a blanket to keep them warm. But this was a process, one which got easier each time they went through it, but none the less a process. You can’t just skip parts of it, even if it hurt or anger you. Minghao repeated it in his head like a mantra. _It’s not in your power to solve it, it is his fight. His fight. Not yours. Just stay with him._

_His fight._

“I want to get inside”

Oh god. Yes.

“Then we will go inside”

His hand itched to grab the door handle, to get out, get inside, do something. But he fought the itch, waited, fucking waited. _Don’t control it, just be there. Stay with him._

He always imagined Wonwoo’s voice when he tried to calm down. Maybe it was a skill achieved from his major and reading his stories or poems out loud, but his voice had always felt soothing to Minghao. It had been able to calm him, even back in the days, when he was younger, shorter and so much angrier. Wonwoo would have been calm as well, if it was him in this situation. Or Minghao would like to believe he would. He had never really been able to understand how the writer’s anxiety worked. 

Mingyu would freak out, had it been him. He just couldn’t handle the frantic eyes and irregular breathing. He would have stayed, of course, the stupid lovably puppy idiot he was, but neither Wonwoo nor Junhui would want to put him in that situation. At least not now, when the dark season was settling heavily upon them. They all had their own shit, but they never left each other.

“I want to go inside and make the small origami stars”

“Okay. I’ll help find the paper strips then”

Junhui still hadn’t moved but his breathing had calmed considerably and a glance at his face showed a far less strained expression. One soft huff of air and finally, _finally_ , the door was open. They both left the car, and Minghao let himself loose a bit of his restraints, his hand reaching for the elders. Minghao was not the one fighting, but he was not his emotionless mask. It hurt to see someone he cared for in such a state, and it urged him to just do something. He was a man of action and sarcastic words, but he was not cold. And the hand slipping into his, intertwining their fingers, sparked his inner fire. 

He was not an empath of Mingyu or Junhui’s level, but he felt so much, that he didn’t know what to do with all his feelings. They were like presents you were given but couldn’t return or get rid of. He was passionate and happy and confident. He was sad and disappointed and angry. He loved and he hated, not in equal amounts, but did his fair bit of both. He felt for those he loved and lived to make others feel, though art or dance alike. 

His youth had been stormy, so many emotions, without a proper outlet. He had wushu and b-boying when he was in China, but even they hadn’t been enough to calm the hurricane raging inside. He was _so angry_ , all the time. And then he moved to Korea. That didn’t make him less angry, his large amount of destroyed furniture was proof of this, but he found a new outlet through a stupid school assignment. He was good at painting and it made him less furious. He could let everything flow out and cross the barrier words had created between himself and everyone else. Minghao was not the best with words, but his actions worked like one hell of a loudspeaker.

“And tea. From the big green cup”

“With the Nessie-tea infuser, yeah?”

“Yeah”

He let Junhui unlock the door when they arrived at the apartment, waiting for his hands to steady enough to push it in and turn it. Minghao shrugged his coat off and hang it neatly on the clothes hook, allowing Junhui all the space he needed to get his own clothes off. He went ahead of the other to the kitchen to start the kettle, before moving back into the living room, quickly finding the star strips for Junhui as promised. The elder has already found his spot on the sofa, facing the blank television with his soft blanket spread carefully over his legs. He seems calm, almost serene, like a Van Gogh painting, all colourful swirls and careful strokes. The kettle beeps and calls Minghao back to the kitchen before he can think any further. He should probably leave the poetry writing to Wonwoo anyway.

Pushing the warm cup into Junhui’s hands startles the other back into reality, from whatever mind adventure he might have been on. He has a lot of those, where he flies away for some time, exploring ideas and memories. The lemongrass tea has been a recent favourite of the elder, and the tug at his lips when he smells the vapor pulls hard on Minghao’s soft side. He hates being unable to act, ever wishing that he could just remove the burdens from the others. He knew not to though, knew he could not fight for them, but he could at the very damn least stay beside them. He let them lead, let them make the calls. He would listen. Because that is what they need. And what he is more than ready to give. 

“Thank you”

“No problem, Jun. Now, how the hell do you make these things?”

“You know how, we made some yesterday”

“Yeah, and now I’ve forgotten. They’re really tiny and complicated, okay? Just show me”

A quiet giggle merges with Yue’s purring. Light has begun filling the apartment through the large windows at the back, the sun’s rays fighting their way through the grey cloud cover.

“Sure, Haohao”

Before noon, they have a small tower of stars on the sofa table, and gone through three more cups of tea, school and projects forgotten. They can be finished another day, when the aftermath of the fight is solved. For now, they will work on the tower, watch weird archaeology programs and try to outdo each other in stupid nicknames. Just for a day. The world can manage without them for a while. And then, when the storm has passed, they can try again. Patience, right?


End file.
